A collection of my rambling thoughts that just need to be put down somewhere

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The New iGoogle

I love Google. I have used it since it was still in its toddler years, and I love the simplicity of the solution it presents. Nowadays, it is much more than just a search engine. I remember the first time I heard of gmail. I was asking around for an invitation. I believe I even did free advertisement for them (most of my friends now have an @gmail.com account). Of course, as we all know, Google offers more products nowadays.

One product I use everyday is iGoogle. I love how it enables me to put multiple websites (ie, gadget) on one page, giving me a glimpse of what I will be seeing if I were to visit those individual pages. I love the fact that I can check for news and email and facebook notification and new blog entries all at the same time from the same page (before iGoogle, I have tons of bookmarks).

Google has just introduced a new iGoogle, which is applied to randomly-selected accounts. At first glance, it looks good. We have the option of "maximizing" a specific gadget on the page. News feed now has a blurb beneath the title. I can also tag/delete/move Gmail emails, which is a good feature to add.

BUT, it also introduces limitations on the feature I use the most: Gmail! Now I cannot reply to email, or forward an email, or attach a document if I am accessing Gmail via iGoogle (these were all possible before). On top of that, my sent email is not saved on Gmail folder.

The new iGoogle doesn't let me move gadgets between tabs either, which is more than annoying. To move gadget, I have to delete it, and then add it from another tab view. Definitely a huge step back from the previous iGoogle.

I am sure there are people who will love the new iGoogle. Personally, I don't like it. So I tried to change it back to the old one.

To revert to the old iGoogle, from my iGoogle page, type this command on the address bar:javascript:_dlsetp('v2=0');

To change to the new iGoogle, type this on the address bar:javascript:_dlsetp('v2=1');

Thankfully, the command works in IE. It doesn't work in Firefox, though (I am still seeing the annoying new iGoogle page). So for now, IE is my office browser.